Worried For Grizzlies, Judge Halts Year-Round Wolf Trapping In Idaho
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Over 25 Amazon parrots found hidden in car at Arizona border
Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Investigators say somebody tried to smuggle 27 Amazon parrots into Arizona but was stopped at the Arizona crossing.
By Ben Bradley
Published: Mar. 20, 2024 at 3:00 PM PDT
https://www.azfamily.com/2024/03/20/over-25-amazon-parrots-found-hidden-car-arizona-border
NOGALES, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — Over two dozen protected birds were seized from a car driven by someone attempting to smuggle them across the southern border into Arizona.
Earlier this week at the Port of Nogales, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers found 27 Amazon parrots hidden in a passenger car trying to enter the U.S. through the Mariposa Crossing. CBP says two lilac-crowned Amazon parrots and 25 white-fronted Amazon parrots were found in a crate that was covered by a dark cloth on a passenger seat.
The birds are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora and are valued at $800-3,000 each.
The investigation has been turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for prosecution. No suspects have been identified.
Aggressive elephant lifts safari car filled with tourists into the air in South Africa
ByABC7.com staff 
Thursday, March 21, 2024 9:20AM
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Action News, AccuWeather and Entertainment
Action News, AccuWeather and Entertainment
A frightening moment for a group of tourists in South Africa was caught on camera when an elephant approached their safari truck and partially lifted it up into the air.
The incident happened March 18 in Pilanesberg National Park, northwest of Johannesburg.
The group of local South Africans were touring the area when they got too close to the elephant bull to take pictures. That’s when the large animal became aggressive and approached the safari truck.
Video from the scene shows the elephant lifting the front portion of the vehicle with its tusks before letting it drop to the ground. Screaming can be heard in the video.
The guide backed up the vehicle and slammed his hand against what appears to be the door in attempt to convince the elephant to stop.
The tour operator Mankwe Game Trackers told ABC News they understand the elephant was in musth, a periodic state of the bull elephant characterized by aggressive behavior and a surge of testosterone levels.
Nobody was hurt in the encounter, but the park offered counseling for those who were the most rattled.
Missouri Hunters Take 12 Black Bears in State’s Third Season
Wildlife officials in Missouri capped the season harvest at 40 black bears, but hunters killed less than a third despite good conditions.
- By Alan Clemons
- March 22, 2024
- https://www.grandviewoutdoors.com/bear/missouri-hunters-take-12-black-bears-in-states-third-season
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Twelve black bears were killed by hunters during Missouri’s third season, far below the maximum quota cap of 40 bears.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) said 5,370 hunters applied during May 2024 for 400 permits. The maximum total harvest was capped at 40 bears for the short October 16-25 season. Of the 400 hunters selected through a random drawing of all applicants, 342 hunters purchased bear season permits.
“We had another successful black bear hunting season this year and saw bears harvested in four new counties where bears had not been previously harvested,” said MDC Bear Biologist Nate Bowersock. “Conditions this season couldn’t have been much better for hunters. We look forward to hearing from hunters about their experiences through our annual post-season survey.”
Bear hunting in Missouri is limited to Missouri residents. It is restricted to three designated areas of the southern region of the state called Bear Management Zones (BMZ). Each permit issued is for a specific BMZ. Hunting is limited to public or private property within the BMZ.
Nine bears were killed in BMZ 1 out of a maximum of 20, with 173 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. Three bears were harvested in BMZ 2 out of a maximum of 15, with 125 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. No bears were harvested in BMZ 3 out of a maximum of five with 44 hunters purchasing permits to hunt the zone. All bears were killed using firearms. Of the 12 bears, three were boars and nine were sows.
Wyoming Could Be Next To Restrict Wolf Trapping Because Of Grizzlies
Following a similar ruling in Montana, wolf trapping in Idaho was restricted Tuesday over concern that grizzly bears could get caught in wolf traps. Wyomingites are worried it could happen here.
March 21, 20244 min read
After Montana restricted trapping wolves under the auspices of protecting grizzly bears, Idaho followed suit this week leaving many in Wyoming wondering if the Cowboy State could be next.
Maybe, some Wyoming outdoorsmen said, though they oppose the idea.
John Eckman of Greybull said he’s heard of only one verified incident of a grizzly getting caught in a trap in Wyoming, and to his knowledge that bear was released without incident or injury to the bear.
Considering the number of bears that get accidentally struck and killed on highways, or are killed by game agents because of conflicts with humans, concern over grizzlies possibly getting caught in traps seems misplaced, said Eckman, who is vice president of the Wyoming State Trappers Association.
“Trapping in grizzly country doesn’t seem to be a problem, does it?” he said. “There’s more grizzlies killed on highways than have ever been accidentally killed by trapping.”
Mike Schmid of La Barge, a former member of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, said circumstances in Wyoming are different than those in Idaho and Montana when it comes to wolf traps in grizzly county.
In the Wyoming’s “trophy hunting zones” for wolves, trapping wolves isn’t allowed, Schmid said. Hunters with wolf licenses must use firearms or archery equipment to bag their game.
And outside of those trophy hunting zones in areas of Wyoming where wolves may be legally trapped, there are few — if any — grizzly bears, Schmid said.
No More Year-Round Trapping In Idaho
Following similar successful legal actions in Montana, a coalition of environmental groups successfully sued to have year-round wolf trapping on private land in Idaho restricted. Idaho’s public-land wolf trapping season was also shortened by federal judge’s decision on Tuesday.
In both states, the restrictions were implemented over concerns that grizzlies could get injured or killed by being caught in wolf traps.
Eckman said he questions whether the legal actions were truly prompted by concern over grizzlies or were just a step toward banning trapping altogether.
The traps used for wolves or other species might hurt a younger grizzly, but probably wouldn’t be a threat to an adult bear, he said.
He also said that the federal judge’s order not only undermines Idaho trappers, but the will of most people in that state.
“The state of Idaho is pro-predator control, pro-hunting and pro-conservation,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who are really deflated over this thing. How can this be?”
Lager Topic Of Delisting
Schmid said he also wonders about the wider implication of the Montana and Idaho wolf trapping restriction.
While there’s been a push to get grizzlies in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho delisted from Endangered Species Act protection, there’s been a simultaneous effort to get wolves re-listed.
So, Schmid wonders if the trapping restrictions are part of a wider push to block the delisting of grizzles.
There was considerable chatter about desisting grizzlies last year among political leaders in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, but things have since quieted down.
However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still considering the matter, an agency spokesman told Cowboy State Daily.
“The service is working to complete an in-depth status review and analyses using the best available science and information to determine whether removing ESA protections and designating distinct population segments for grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems is warranted,” Joe Szuszwalak stated in an email.
There was no specific time frame for how much longer the analyses might take, he added.
Hunting Accident Claims Life in Perry County
Revived bid to ban trophy hunting imports moves closer to becoming law
Vermont Is the Latest State Where Animal-Rights Activists Could Upend Hunting and Trapping by Joining the Wildlife Board
Vermont Senate Bill 258 wouldn’t just restrict coyote hunting. It could change everything about how state’s fish and wildlife agency makes decisions
https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/vermont-wildlife-board-bill
By Katie Hill
Updated On Mar 20, 2024 3:47 PM EDT
9 Minute Read
Photo by Beth Baisch / Adobe Stock
This week, a bill to change the membership, authority, and scope of duties of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board took another step toward becoming law. In addition to requiring some “non-consumptive” users serve on the board, the bill would also ban hunting coyotes over bait and with dogs.
The attempted overhaul mostly comes from critics of how the board recently handled coyote hunting and trapping rule changes, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department commissioner Christopher Herrick tells Outdoor Life. But it reflects a larger shift — one we’ve seen in other parts of the country — toward a more partisan approach to wildlife management than the default trust in agency biologists, managers, and other subject-matter experts. Most notable is Washington, where a wildlife commission recently staffed with multiple preservationist, anti-hunting members voted in 2022 to end the spring bear season, despite the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s stance that it was ecologically sustainable.
Related: What Happens When Anti-Hunters Join a State Game Commission and Take Charge of Hunting Seasons
In addition to the coyote baiting and hounding ban, Vermont Senate Bill 258 would dismantle and restructure the board with members from varied backgrounds through a new selection process. It would also require that VFWD take over the board’s decision- and rulemaking powers. So if this bill becomes law, (and it looks like it might), then a birder, for instance, would get the same amount of clout that a duck hunter would — and VFWD would have to report to both when setting seasons, establishing Vermont’s antlerless hunt, and making other rules.
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Like the regulatory bodies of wildlife agencies in other states, Vermont’s board is currently comprised of governor-appointed citizens. Those 14 members, one from each of the state’s 14 counties, oversee hunting, trapping, and fishing. While they aren’t required to have degrees or career backgrounds in wildlife biology or management, they are informed and guided by those who do: VDFW employees.
But their perceived lack of qualifications — and what many consider an undemocratic selection process — are part of why the bill’s proponents are trying to change the status quo. Herrick says this criticism undermines the quality work the agency has accomplished in recent years.
“If you look at the history of the Fish and Wildlife Board and Department, and the work that we’ve done, our wildlife is in a very good place,” Herrick says. “In the early seventies, we introduced wild turkeys to the state and now that’s one of our biggest game seasons, in May and in the fall as well. We have a healthy and vibrant deer herd. We have a good moose population that’s being managed very well. That doesn’t mention the work we do with our flora. To use a trite phrase, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted favorably on the new structure proposed by the most recent amendments to S.258. The bill would require 10 board members to be appointed by the state legislature and five by the wildlife commissioner, making for a 15-person board rather than the current 14-person structure.
Members would also be selected to represent both “consumptive and non-consumptive uses of wildlife.” The current board members all have one thing in common: They identify as hunters, trappers, and anglers. But under the new structure, some members would have to represent the interests of hunters, anglers, and trappers while others represent the interests of wildlife watchers, photographers, and enthusiasts — a codified dividing line between user groups that evades definition and befuddles Vermonters who strongly identify as “all of the above.”
“One of my campmates is a biology teacher and a big birder,” Herrick says. “We spent last weekend ice fishing. We do a lot of goose hunting. He also took the time to search out a Northern hawk owl. The Fish and Wildlife Department doesn’t segregate people by type like that.”
Our wildlife is in a very good place. We have a healthy and vibrant deer herd. We have a good moose population that’s being managed very well. That doesn’t mention the work we do with our flora. To use a trite phrase, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.—Christopher Herrick, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department commissioner
As Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Eastern policy and conservation manager Chris Borgatti points out, other parts of the bill show a blatant misunderstanding of the agency’s current functions.
“The bill calls for a plan to be put in place for nongame species. But there’s already a federally mandated state wildlife action plan which is reviewed every 10 years or so,” Borgatti tells Outdoor Life. “Vermont has one of the most aggressive, balanced, ecologically-mindful plans in the country. So to not even be aware that there’s an existing plan that not only seeks public input but incorporates it, that was one of the signs that this was an agenda-driven effort. I think that’s the most concerning thing.”
Borgatti is referring to what concerns most hunters and anglers about this bill: that it could be an attempt to usher animal rights advocates into positions of power.
Wildlife management is an especially controversial topic in Vermont right now due to recent rule changes around hunting coyotes with dogs and trapping. In 2022, the Vermont legislature mandated that the board change their policies on both practices. Act 159 required that the board update the state’s trapping regulations to change where traps can be set, how trapped animals can be dispatched, and what types of traps are legal.
“You could say that we now have the most comprehensive set of restrictions to govern trapping activities in all of North America,” VFWD wildlife division director John Austin tells Outdoor Life.
Act 165 mandated that the board find a way to “reduce friction” between hounders, landowners, and non-hunting domestic pets. This resulted in a temporary moratorium on hunting coyotes with dogs until the board enacted rule changes.
Some hunters and trappers say the changes are too restrictive. Some anti-hunters and -trappers say they weren’t nearly restrictive enough. Other folks — including some hunters, trappers, anglers, and non-hunters who support them — aren’t sure what to think. The deadlock between two vocal minorities is the greatest reason to keep wildlife management decision-making as apolitical as possible, Ruffed Grouse Society Northeast regional forest conservation director Todd Waldron tells Outdoor Life. Legislating changes to the basic framework of a natural resource agency, he says, does the opposite.
“This is an interesting recurring theme of how people with [extreme] perspectives are trying to advance those agendas and use the legislative process to overturn these systems that are working for fish and game boards, forestry boards, and other agencies.”
Does the Wildlife Board Really Represent the Public?
Of course, letting the governor appoint board members isn’t much less political than having legislators do so, as S.258 proposes. According to Brenna Galdenzi, executive director of animal-rights organization Protect Our Wildlife, it shows.
“This board is making public policy on a shared public resource, our shared wildlife, without representation from a diverse public,” she says while giving testimony on S.258, noting that the board has been accused in the past of “hostile behavior” by members of the “non-consumptive public.” “That is simply not good democracy. Why should 14 people who are not elected and do not represent the majority of Vermonters hold the power to pass regulations that affect all of us?”
But according to a 2022 VFWD survey on the public’s attitudes toward furbearer management, board members are representing the majority of Vermonters. Sixty percent of respondents strongly or moderately support the right of others to trap, even if they don’t trap themselves. Only 25 percent strongly or moderately opposed that right. (Ten percent were neutral and five percent didn’t know.) As far as hunting goes, Vermont ranks 14th in the nation for hunting license sales per 100 people.
“You could say that we now have the most comprehensive set of restrictions to govern trapping activities in all of North America.”—John Austin, VFWD wildlife division director
In other words, while hunters, trappers, and anglers are a minority in Vermont, the non-hunting public generally supports hunting and trapping there. The real minority opinion is that of devout anti-hunters. So how they are pushing through a bill to change something the majority of Vermonters support?
“There’s a small number of people who are very vocal and well-funded who are advocating for this,” says Herrick. “They are only doing it to leverage their ability to [gain] authority by excluding hunters. It’s so narrow-minded to think that a hunter can’t be a conservationist.”
And then there are hunters like Alex Smith of Bristol, who neither support nor denounce S.258 in its current form. His greatest fear? That some hunters are starting to become what vocal anti-hunters make them out to be: ineffective at self-policing bad apples and close-minded to compromise. So he sat down with Galdenzi of Protect Our Wildlife for two hours over coffee to talk about S.258. He walked away from the table with a better understanding of the inherent differences between his views and hers. Then he wrote an op-ed for the VT Digger reminding hunters that “public relations is a duty that cannot be neglected.” Especially not in Vermont.
“The natural resource industries have fallen apart in Vermont,” he tells Outdoor Life. “We also export our youth at a pretty crazy rate and replace them with retired people. So we’re not growing homegrown outdoorsmen and bringing them up through careers in wild spaces and getting them to ages where they would be useful voices. Vermont is a hunting state, especially for a state that is turning over so much population. It really culturally values hunting. But that demographic is aging and is not being replaced by a demographic that values it as much.”
So, Smith calls on those who remain to be proactive and engage in the public process in a way that reflects well on all hunters, trappers and anglers. After all, as he writes, even in a state whose residents have a constitutional right to hunting and fishing, no one gets anywhere by being close-minded — if anything, the parts of S.258 that scare him, Herrick, Waldron, and others alike are proof of that.
“Neither side feels the other is negotiating in good faith and making their actual goals and desires clear, and fear of what lies at the end of the unknown slippery slope keeps us from engaging,” Smith says. “I share that fear. It’s natural. But the only answer is to meet these people at the table and try to at least understand each others’ viewpoints. These conversations can end at philosophical impasses, and it’s hard to know what to do in that event, but at least then motivations are understood and trust is built, which is a far better situation than trying to assign motivations and beliefs to people we don’t know or understand.”
S.258 recently passed out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and it currently sits with the Appropriations Committee. Once it passes out of committee, it will be read by the whole Senate, who will have to pass the bill before it can start the same process in the Vermont House of Representatives, so the debate is far from over. Commissioner Herrick tells Outdoor Life he has reason to believe it doesn’t have broad support in Montpelier, though it received a 4-2-1 vote in favor in Appropriations Tuesday and a favorable report on Wednesday.
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https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/vermont-wildlife-board-bill/
Western Minnesota goat tests positive for bird flu; first case of its kind in US history
By Aki Nace
Updated on: March 21, 2024 / 11:39 AM CDT / CBS Minnesota
STEVENS COUNTY, Minn. — A young goat in western Minnesota has tested positive for bird flu — a case that is the first of its kind in the United States.
The goat was living on a farm in Stevens County that, in February, had a flock that tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, according to the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. The flock was in quarantine when the goat tested positive.
The board says this is the first time that HPAI has been detected in a domestic ruminant — cattle, sheep, goats, and their relatives — in the United States. It’s previously been found in other mammals like skunks, dogs, cats, and the virus killed a polar bear for the first time earlier this year. Since the start of the 2022 HPAI outbreak, more than 200 mammals have tested positive for the virus.
However, experts say that mammals cannot spread the disease themselves.
“This finding is significant because, while the spring migration is definitely a higher risk transmission period for poultry, it highlights the possibility of the virus infecting other animals on farms with multiple species,” said State Veterinarian Dr. Brian Hoefs.
The board learned of the unusual case when the owner flagged the strange deaths of juvenile goats on the property where a backyard poultry flock had been depopulated because of HPAI. The animals had shared a space, including a water source. One of the goats tested positive for H5N1 HPAI, which is the same strain of bird flu that has been spreading since 2022.
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All the adult goats on the property have tested negative, and there have been no more sick goats since March 11.
According to the most recent H5N1 report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Minnesota saw one case of HPAI in a wild bird in the last 30 days. Since the start of the outbreak, Minnesota has seen the greatest number of wild birds test positive with the virus compared to other states.
Exposing the Big Game 